I'd like to feed my NZW rabbits(when I get them)alfalfa hay and grass hay with some additional grains and veggies/weeds. I'm thinking that now is about the right time to buy hay and if I have the storage space for it, I could buy for the whole year. Does anyone know approximately how many 50# bales/ per rabbit. I know there are many variables, but I need some kind of ballpark number to start with.

Any comments on this type of diet are also welcome. I'm still in the research and planning stage, and want to be well prepared for when I get my rabbits.

How many breeders do you plan to have? Fryers come and go - eating a lot while they are growing - so you need to look at the number of breeders and the number of times you intend to breed them per year to get a rough idea.

And then, too, you have to look at your management style and whether you use hay feeders or not and whether your rabbits are in cages or a colony setting. My rabbits are in a colony and waste a tremendous amount of hay, except that it is not truly wasted because it becomes part of the "deep litter" on the colony floor and later becomes garden mulch. Hay costs only a little more than straw here, so this works out okay for me.

By the way, your idea for feeding the rabbits is just about what I do. From May to October they get a huge amount of gathered greens (weeds, leaves and twigs of certain trees etc.) and go through less hay. From November to April, alfalfa hay is the mainstay of their diet, with the fresh component being much less. Grain is fed in small quantities year round.

A little more info: I'm planning on buying 3 does (sisters) and 1 buck this summmer or fall. If the does are 8-10 weeks old when I get them, they wont have litters until spring or early summer most likely. I 'll be able to buy first cutting hay by then so I'm thinking of buying enough for 4 rabbits plus a little extra. I'm building a colony set up for the girls with a room off to the side for the buck.

It'll only take you a few bales. We go through about 1 a month, sometimes 2, with 30 something rabbits and feeding all the hay they will eat. 1 bale lasts 1 rabbit longer than a year depending on waste. I don't allow for too much waste. They get more hay if they eat all their hay and if they don't eat it then they get given less hay at a time until both cages and colonies are getting about the amount they will eat between feedings so they don't go without but they pick the loose pieces up and don't leave too much in the bedding.

Sorry that I cannot remember, Akane, but do you feed pellets as well as hay? I can't imagine a bale lasting that long with 30 rabbits if you are feeding a pelletless diet as Echobird intends to do.

Don't forget-- the QUALITY of the hay is important, too! Low quality takes more to meet the nutritional needs, and will also have a lot of waste. High quality means better conversions from hay to meat.

We feed horse pellets which are basically a grain mix (no corn) smashed in to a pellet but the rabbits don't eat that much of those. There's no hay or added fiber to it, just grains and powdered vitamins/minerals, and they probably eat less in pellets than most people feed in greens when going without pellets. We also run out quite frequently and I only go to the stable every other day since we are 30mins away so they don't get any half the week. Right now they haven't had any pellets for a week cause I haven't gotten to the feedstore. We cut out the black oil sunflower seeds last month since they had been steadily eating less and leaving it behind even if they ran out of all food. Except the few who were getting quite fat on them. We'll probably add it again when the weather starts to dip below freezing and some of the young does we have are breeding instead of sitting around getting fat now that they are nearly done growing. They get most of the stuff they would need from a pellet and fresh foods from some really good quality organic "mineral" blocks that have some added powdered grains like wheat, alfalfa meal, and I forget what else to make 18% protein. We replace those about every 4months for I think $20 each. They hardly touched the previous blocks we used which were standard horse mineral blocks (the somewhat crumbly ones not the red trace mineral salt blocks) and I actually threw one out to the horses because it got so dried out sitting around that they stopped eating it. These blocks they really like and carve them in to weird shapes.

We sometimes end up going through more hay when we feed higher quality because the rabbits inhale it even if the other stuff we occasionally have to get is not by any means bad. No weeds and all green but it's not their organic clover hay they love. When I bring those bales in to the building they all line up at the edge of the colonies. I reserved a dozen bales of the 3rd cut clover hay since he presold his entire 2nd cut when we went to pick some up right after his first cut. He wanted to sell me last years 2nd cut since it had been in a dark dry building and was still green but my horse nutrition classes showed that even well stored hay starts to degrade after a year and we would have been feeding it out for another year before using it up and getting more from him. I don't feel comfortable relying on 2 year old hay.

I only buy 2 bales at a time, and it lasts my herd of roughly 10-20 (right now we have 21 rabbits) a good 2 or so months. We only feed hay at night and give the rabbits as much as they'll eat before the next PM feeding. Some rabbits will clean it all up, and some won't. But we found that giving them unlimited hay 2x a day resulted in a much bigger waste than just giving them as much as they'll eat 1x a day.

Does with litters do get hay 2x a day, and the Rex Juniors get grass hay and alfalfa hay.

Emily

On average we have 19 breeders and us about a bale a week. They also eat pellets, oats, etc...

i have 7 Flemish Giants and 2 Holland Lops and a Pet Chinchilla(?rodent?) and we live in Wisconsin so i bought a Large square bale(900lbs) Alfalfa/hay for few $'s from a friend and I've had it now for 3 months and use it as feed/ bedding. And we have not even put a dent in the bale yet..

You guys are making me cry with your hay prices. We paid $19 a bale for 48 bales delivered about a month ago. We use a bale a day feeding 4 horses, a 9 month colt , a pony, mini donkey, 2 doe goats and their 4 kids, and 23 rabbits. And that's with feeding the bunnie's 'waste hay' to the goats! ACK!

I think I currently feed about a bale a week, with enough waste daily to feed a bunch of goats at least one meal a day. If you could minimize loss of the fines, I think 50lbs (1/2 a bale) week would do for 2 dozen rabbits of various ages.

This is about what we go through as well........we have the same number of breeders. I feed hay a.m. and p.m., giving only enough that I know they will eat, without wasting.

I really lucked out this fall, bought some nice first crop clover/grass/timothy hay for $2.00 a bale. Nice heavy, dry, well packed bales. No mold, and very little dust. Bought enough for the ponies, and rabbits. They just needed the space in the barn, and wanted to move them out.

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I really lucked out this fall, bought some nice first crop clover/grass/timothy hay for $2.00 a bale. Nice heavy, dry, well packed bales. No mold, and very little dust. Bought enough for the ponies, and rabbits. They just needed the space in the barn, and wanted to move them out.[/quote]

Two dollars??? TWO??? OMG, someone bring me an aspirin, I think I'm about to have a heart attack. I paid about $14, now it's $19.

I did really luck out, seriously, right time, right place, and it doesn't happen often. They are easily $4.00 bales of hay. Best part, we worked it out where my hubby will go help them make hay next year, so we can still get small bales from them, otherwise they were going to make all round bales because they have no help. They'll give us a discount for helping out too. We'll take all the help we can get! Finding good hay around here is hard to do, it's either really dusty, or not completely dry.

We have 16 mini lops (holland lop over their)and go through 26 bales a year. feeding ad lib hay and pellet ration daily.